Minsk summit results give hope to settle all problems in Ukraine through talks

Head of Committee for CIS affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots Lenid Slutsky says the meeting between Putin and Poroshenko in Minsk became an important stage Ukraine deescalation

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Russia's president Vladimir Putin, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, and Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko (L-R)

MOSCOW, August 27. /ITAR-TASS/. The results of the Minsk summit give hope to continue settling the whole scope of problems in Ukraine through talks, the head of Russia’s State Duma Committee for CIS affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots said on Wednesday.

“The meeting between Putin and Poroshenko in Minsk, actually as State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin predicted, became a quite important stage on the path of deescalating the situation in Ukraine and establishing our bilateral relations. This is the first open and full-format dialogue between the presidents of the two countries that gives hope of settling the whole scope of problems in talks,” Leonid Slutsky told reporters.

The need for the contact group on Ukraine to resume working as quickly as possible became an important agreement exactly in this context, the lawmaker said. “A roadmap to end military confrontation in Donbass should be prepared as quickly as possible. The role of international mediation, particularly the one that Russia plays, is not the last one at all,” he said.

Meanwhile, the State Duma committee’s chief said that the fact that the leaders of Ukraine and Russia had attained some accord over humanitarian aid to residents in breakaway Luhansk and Donetsk regions can be called “a breakthrough”. “Ordinary citizens, civilians dragged against their will in a military conflict and left without any prime necessities were waiting and are waiting for this,” he added.

“I am convinced that this is not the last meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia. Our countries will have to settle many sensitive issues related to functioning of the Customs Union and conclusion of the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. But now it is important to stop bloodshed in the south-east of the country,” Slutsky added.